The present invention relates to personal safety equipment and, in particular, to devices used to lower persons from the upper stories of a building.
A conventional form of safety equipment for guarding against the risk of falling from considerable height comprises a safety line gripped by the person and attached at its upper end to a fixed anchorage. This equipment may be buckled through a belt to control descent but the escapee must be physically capable of controlling the descent. However, this often is not the situation since a person may suffer rope burns.
Another form of such safety equipment in common use is the rope ladder. The ladder device may be suspended from a window sill by associated hooks or otherwise. While the foregoing enables the individual to escape safely, a disadvantage is the large amount of space required to store a rope ladder. Furthermore, the escapee may not be physically capable or sufficiently coordinated to climb a rope ladder.
Accordingly, there is a need for a simple and effective personal safety device which avoids the disadvantages of the prior art.